I talk. A lot. I read. Quite a bit. I roll over and play dead a.k.a sleep. Whenever I can. I am a gourmand. Happily so. And this here's my mouthpiece for everything that catches my eye or I think about. It usually ends up being a doozy.
Cheers!

18 March, 2011

The gamut of a child's comprehension..

ranges from the minuscule to the gigantic! They can take a concept and keep it compartmentalized or apply it to whatever seems to come close to it.The end result may end up being funny or border on annoyance depending on which time of day your offspring decides to spew forth his understanding of concepts taught.

Case in point- the toilet training of my son. It's been a long while in the offing. I initially tried after he learnt to sit. Got him a cute turtle potty which was fun to play with. The little man was made to sit on it with and without diapers so to get used to the funda of sitting somewhere for a bit (yes, that's right. He doesn't linger much. ANYWHERE!!) and all he'd do was sit on it and rock away. He'd learnt to control his poop and pee because he'd NEVER go in the potty. He'd wait till the diaper was off or on and do the deeds :)

When he began to understand instructions more, I used to try to get him to sit but he'd end up braking his feet like the Looney Tunes characters and getting him to sit became a task worthy of the Olympics!

I grumbled and nagged Red (who did not help much by saying, "It's time to potty train him you know.") You think?!! I spoke to pals who had baby boys specifically and asked their help (and bitched) and they said let him learn on his own. It'll happen. I said, "from your mouth to God's ears." and waited patiently.

And now the glorious hours are dawning. Potty is being done. Averaging one a day in the potty. Sometimes none at all and others, 2-3 in a day. But the concept has been learnt. The monkey keeps chanting, "mamma, mamma, mamma" when he needs to go. And also when he's done the deed and wants to be cleaned up. He's also learnt that potty= chhee-chhee.

So now the scope of the "chhee" has been widened to include the butt, the training potty, any part of the body where the chhee touches, the wipes, the mug with which chhee's washed, the dirty diapers and all kinds of spots and blemishes that he might come across. Anywhere!!

This morning when Red spilled some coffee, the monkey kept chanting chheee and pointing at the coffee spill till Red got some towels and mopped it up! Again when he kicked some fruit mush out of the bowl and it got onto his highchair, he told me with a lot of solemnity,"Mamma CHHEEE-CHHEE.

But when the actual chhee is done in the desired place, one must clap (loudly), say he's a good boy and be generous with the kissy-kissy. For then and only then can he be prevailed upon for a repeat performance. Else one must be prevailed upon to be flagged down from whatever activity one was indulging in, sniff the ripeness of the diaper, lay him down, take off the diaper to be told in what can only be labelled as a DUH! tone- mamma chhee-chhee :) And be prepared to see a non-diapered lil monkey scamper off the bed and run off to do whatever he wants; minus the chhee-chhee :D